It’s Electric! Rural Electrification in Iowa

When a storm knocks out power for a few hours, it's an inconvenience; if the outage lasts much longer it becomes a crisis. However, not so long ago electricity was far from ubiquitous in Iowa.

Iowan Kieth Wirt was 10 years old when electricity came to his family’s farm in Panora. Like most households, the first appliance the Wirts purchased was a refrigerator, and soon after indoor plumbing.

The Rural Electrification Administration erects power lines.

Credit National Archives and Records Administration / U.S. Department of Agriculture

“It was a change from going out," says Wirt. "Especially in the winter time, sitting on that cold seat privy that might have had a little snow on it. (At night) you usually tried to get a brother and sister to go along with you so you weren’t so scared.”

While U.S. cities and towns were connecting to the electric grid in the late 1880s and early 1890s, only about 10 percent of rural Americans had electricity by 1930. "It's very similar to the scenario we have today with the rural broadband issues, in that the power companies just couldn't see a profit margin in providing that infrastructure," says journalist Terri Queck-Matzie, author of "75 Year of Progress: The Farmers Electric Cooperative."

Thanks to loans provided through the New Deal's Rural Electrification Act, rural electric cooperatives (RECs) constructed the infrastructure necessary to channel wholesale power to farming communities across the country.

The electricity revolutionized farm work. Now livestock water tanks were filled by electric pumps and barns had power for devices like electric milk machines and egg counters.

Mrs. Nolan Freeman of Albertville, Alabama takes her home’s monthly electric meter reading, in October 1965. The electricity is provided by the Marshall-Dekalb Electrical Co-Op.

Credit National Archives and Records Administration / U.S. Department of Agriculture

"Urban populations were growing and those urban populations who couldn't produce their own food wanted affordable and safe food,” says Queck-Matzie. “So right at the time that farmers were expected to meet this incredible demand, the guys were returning home from the war and taking over the family farmers, and wanting to modernize...and electricity just fed all that.”

Today, RECs continue to bring inovation to rural Iowa with renewable energies. In reponse to a member's request, about five years ago the small Farmers Electric Cooperative (FEC) in Kalona, started providing the option of solar energy.

“In southeast Iowa, we don’t have the wind resources that they have in central and western Iowa,” explains Warren McKenna, FEC's general manager. “Solar does as well as wind and we don’t have to climb the tower.”

The Farmers Electric Coop's solar garden in Frytown. There are currently 512 modules or panels, FEC plans to install another 40 this summer.

Credit Warren McKenna / Farmers Electric Coop

McKenna says that about 20 percent of FEC 650 costumers either own solar modules or purchase solar energy or renewable in some way. Though it takes about seven years to recoup the cost of a module, the solar energy provides a long-term saving to members.

Active RECs are also important for the survival of rural communities. With fewer people farming, the electic coops make it possible to recruit and sustain industry. Often an REC will even be a part of the recruitment process as a new factory becomes a new REC member.

Looking to the future, as RECs continue to change and adopt new energy technologies, these coops will continue to play an integral part in rural Iowa.

Related Content

Iowa’s rural electric cooperatives are aggressively pursuing a new technology for measuring electricity consumption at homes and farms. With so-called smart meters , the REC’s can tell how much power you’ve used without going anywhere near your house. Health and privacy concerns have led some rural residents to look to the legislature for help.

Low propane supplies in the Midwest have driven up the cost of the fuel used by many rural families to heat their homes and businesses—to the point where Senator Chuck Grassley has requested an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

Iowa Public Radio’s Durrie Bouscaren traveled to an area in Central Iowa that depends on propane, and came back with this story.

Even if the rollout of the federal health law had gone off without a technical hitch, getting millions of Americans to sign up for insurance would still be a tall order. That’s why the law includes funding for workers trained to help people find their way around the new system. But in rural states like Iowa, with populations spread across hundreds of miles, those workers face an especially daunting challenge.

It’s mid-morning on a bleak March day in Nilwood, Ill. And every 10 minutes or so, a car or truck pulls into the gravel parking lot in front of the south-central Illinois town’s post office.

Rush hour.

Because there is no mail delivery here, the town’s 236 residents must stop in to the post office to stay connected. Staffed by one full-time postmaster and one relief person, this office provides mail service six days a week. As in many rural communities across the country, the post office serves as an informal community center.

July 1 is a big date for mental health care in Iowa—that’s the day funding switches over to a redesigned model. The legislature approved a plan to equalize mental health care funding for low income residents across the state. Some counties are crying foul, saying programs will be gutted. But other’s say the change they say finally gives all counties a level playing field.

Why does the FCC think America needs its newly- announced 'National Broadband’ plan and why are Iowa cities scrambling to be Google’s choice for superfast broadband? We examine broadband expansion with former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson. Then a conversation with television advertising editor Josh Bodnar. The Emmy Award-winner will discuss his craft of high-tech editing with a lecture Monday at the University of Northern Iowa.

This week is when lawmakers have to have their bills wrapped up so they can make to the floor to be debated in either the Iowa House or Senate. This is an election year and at the outset of the session Republican and Democratic leaders said things can get done this session despite a lot of lawmakers vying for higher office and re-election, but consensus would have to be reached early. IPR's Clay Masters checks in with Statehouse Correspondent Joyce Russell to talk about the early deadline dubbed funnel week by lawmakers.

Through high winds and hail, dry years and wet, and through the pressures of development and corporate interests Atina Diffley and her husband Martin ran one of the first certified organic produce farms in the Midwest.

How do you stop plans for a new housing subdivision near your property? Well, how about starting a hog operation right next to it? That's exactly what some residents north of Iowa City are doing. Today on "River to River" we'll hear from both sides of the feud.

We'll also visit a hog confinement to find out where your bacon comes from. We'll also hear pro and con voices concerning concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs.